The Belfry Murder: A Golden Age Mystery

By Moray Dalton

“If I meet any dragons I’ll run away.”

When Mary Borlase, English governess of the little Countess Nadine, escapes from Russia during the Great War, she brings with her jewels belonging to the ill-fated Romanoffs, including a famous emerald, the Eye of Nero. Mary dies of pneumonia a few days after reaching Englan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dean Street Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913054786

Moray Dalton

Katherine Dalton Renoir ('Moray Dalton') was born in Hammersmith, London in 1881, the only child of a Canadian father and English mother.The author wrote two well-received early novels, Olive in Italy (1909), and The Sword of Love (1920). However, her career in crime fiction did not begin until 1924, after which Moray Dalton published twenty-nine mysteries, the last in 1951. The majority of these feature her recurring sleuths, Scotland Yard inspector Hugh Collier and private inquiry agent Hermann Glide.Moray Dalton married Louis Jean Renoir in 1921, and the couple had a son a year later. The author lived on the south coast of England for the majority of her life following the marriage. She died in Worthing, West Sussex, in 1963.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

It was the slack time in the Caffé della Dea and the waiter had shuffled wearily up the steep flight of dirty steps from the basement and crossed the road to sit on the seat under the pepper tree. Sea and sky were intensely blue and the walls of the villas on the hillside dazzlingly white in the blazing sunlight. The waiter, pallid and unshaven in his greasy dress suit, looked like one of the noisome insects that live in darkness under the stones as he sat staring vacantly with bleared eyes at the shipping in the harbour, a forest of masts and funnels. Actually he was more observant than he seemed and he had already noticed a stranger who leaned against the wall of the quay a few paces away. The stranger was smoking a cigarette. He was well dressed. The waiter, whose name was Ivan, had seen men of all nations, and he decided that this was an Englishman. He might have come ashore from one of the yachts in the harbour, or from the liner that would be leaving in a few hours. His Panama hat was tilted over his eyes, shading his face.

An itinerant vendor of the local jewellery sidled up to him, opened the case slung from his shoulders by a leather strap, and displayed coral necklaces, tortoiseshell combs, and brooches made of lava and of mosaic. The stranger entered into conversation, picked out some ornament and paid for it with a bundle of notes taken from his pocket-book. Then the peddler shut his case with the air of a man in a hurry and shambled rapidly away.

Ivan, gazing after him, regretted his weak eyesight. There had been something furtive about the transaction that aroused his interest. He got up and went to lean on the quay wall next to the stranger.

A fine day, sir, he said, speaking English.

The stranger answered curtly, Very.

The stranger looked bored. He was perhaps waiting for somebody and found the time hang heavy on his hands.

Pretty things made out of coral, said Ivan.

Very.

The people here think the branched coral is useful. Against the mal occhio, you know. The evil eye. Did you ever hear of the Eye of Nero?

The question had the effect intended. The stranger turned his head and looked at Ivan, abandoning his evident intention of walking away.

Yes. What about it?

I could tell you a story about it, a very interesting story, said Ivan. I was not always a waiter in the Caffé della Dea.

The stranger gave him a measuring glance. The sagging paunch and the flat feet, the dirty, ill-fitting clothes, still left a few traces of the man’s former good looks. He had been a fine, well set up young fellow once.

Russian? said the stranger.

Yes.

The Army?

No. I was a servant in the Imperial household. I was one of the few who remained at the Tsarskoe Selo until the Romanoffs were taken to Siberia. They had an Aladdin’s cave of jewels, and what became of them? I ask you?

The stranger shrugged his shoulders. What becomes of the pebbles on the mountain path after the avalanche has carried it away?

Yes, said the seedy waiter, but not the Eye of Nero. I know what became of that. I even planned to go after it. But I was arrested and thrown into prison. I was treated with the basest ingratitude. I tried to buy my freedom by telling them what I had overheard. I tell you I heard it, the Tsarina herself and the little countess—but they wouldn’t believe me. The Eye of Nero! Why, some said it was the biggest emerald in the world. And it’s historic. Nero looked through it at Peter, head downwards on his cross.

I know all that, said the stranger. I happen to be interested in jewels. Tell me what I don’t know, and quickly.

He took a couple of notes from his case. Ivan shook his head.

More.

The stranger added another. That’s all you’ll get. Take it or leave it.

Ivan had an uneasy feeling that the information he was about to impart was worth a good deal more. On the other hand many years had gone by. The scent had grown cold. Nothing had been heard of that famous stone, that translucent green loveliness, since it had passed from the Tsarina’s keeping. It was almost certainly lost for ever. So he clutched the proffered notes and crammed them into his greasy trouser pocket.

This is what happened— he began.

He talked earnestly for ten minutes, and the stranger listened with equal earnestness, but at the end he only laughed.

The needle and the haystack.

But the name is unusual, said Ivan, that should be a help.

Well, I shouldn’t tell that tale again if I were you, said the stranger. I warn you for your own sake.

Ivan cringed, not so much at the words as at the tone. What little spirit he had ever possessed had been broken long ago.

What do you mean? he quavered.

Well, you aren’t in Russia now, but there are agents of that Government in other countries. They wouldn’t buy your story, they’d wring it out of you. That’s why I advise you to forget it after this.

Ivan looked after him as he strolled away in the direction of the harbour, and then, hearing a clock striking the hour, trudged back to his steaming underground kitchen. He was not impressed by the stranger’s warning. If the Bolsheviki wanted his story they could have it; he had told it often enough in the past to half drunken listeners who thought he was lying, but he had never been paid for it before, and he was elated by his success. When some Russians from a tramp steamer discharging a cargo of timber spent a riotous evening in the Caffé della Dea soon afterwards he repeated his performance for a fifty lire note and half a bottle of the padrone’s worst vermouth. The next day he disappeared.

A week later a man’s body was washed up on the beach some miles farther down the coast. The padrone read about it in the paper and thought he might be able to identify it, but his wife persuaded him not to go to the mortuary. It was better not to get mixed up in such an affair, and when, the next day, he heard that there had been a knife thrust between the shoulder blades, he was glad he had taken her advice. Ivan, ex-servant, ex-traitor, ex-spy, was gone, but the emerald he had seen twice in his life, first at a State Ball, gleaming on the breast of an Empress, and next, through a keyhole, lying in the palm of her hand, shone still, like a baleful star, in other minds.

CHAPTER I

THE FIRST MOVE

Elmer Passage was an alley leading down to the river which, since the boat builder’s yard at the end had become derelict, was practically a cul-de-sac. As there were no chance passers-by there were no chance customers at the second-hand furniture and book shop that was wedged in there between the high blank walls of warehouses, but old John Borlase, who had inherited the business from his grandfather, had an enviable reputation with that fairly numerous class of small collectors who like to feel sure that they are not being cheated. He did not belong to the ring of furniture and art dealers, and, perhaps owing to that fact, had never been very prosperous, but the shop with the house and the yard at the back were his own property, and since Anne, his only child, had left school and was helping him in the shop he had not to pay the wages of an assistant. He suffered a good deal from sciatica, and sometimes lately she had gone in his stead to sales and auctions all over the country. The big dealers, those swarthy men with guttural voices and fur-lined coats, who smoked expensive cigars and travelled in huge glittering cars, regarded her with good-natured amusement. She was so small and so fearless that they nicknamed her the robin, and she was allowed to pick up the crumbs they let fall, so that often she came home in triumph in her aged and battered Ford with a Victorian firescreen or some scraps of old lace, or a bundle of books acquired for a few shillings.

Anne was alone in the shop one afternoon in October when a woman came in and asked for Russian embroideries. She was a big woman with a deep, hoarse voice. Her face was thickly powdered and her big mouth was smeared with streaks of red. She wore a fox fur wound round her throat, and a black coat, and a black velvet beret pulled well down to her eyes. Anne thought she was the most repulsive-looking person she had ever seen.

Russian, madam? I’m afraid not. I have a strip of Flemish lace. She unfolded a roll of the cobweb stuff carefully on the counter. Isn’t that lovely?

The strange customer touched the lace with a black gloved forefinger. Anne noticed that she had enormous hands.

Yes, she said, but she did not seem really interested. She was darting glances here, and there into the dark recesses of the shop. You are Miss Borlase?

Yes.

I saw the name of Borlase over the shop front. It is an unusual name, is it not?

Perhaps it is.

You live here all alone with your father?

Yes. Anne was beginning to resent this cross-examination.

And your aunt? The woman in black seemed to attach importance to Anne’s answer, for she leaned towards her across the counter.

Anne shrank a little instinctively.

Aunt Mary? She died years ago.

Here?

Yes, she’d only just come back to England. Why do you—

She broke off as the shop door bell rang again and another customer came in. This time it was an old gentleman well known to her. who had picked out some books from the shelves a week before and had now returned to pay for them. The woman put down the lace quickly and with a murmured Thank you. Good afternoon, left the shop. Anne, relieved by her departure, took the old gentleman’s money, receipted his bill, and, after the usual interchange of remarks about the weather, which was cold and wet, saw him off the premises. Big Ben, across the river, was striking six. Anne locked the shop door and drew down the blinds. Then she went into the living-room at the back of the house where her father was making toast for tea.

Who was that just now, Anne?

Mr. Belsize.

I heard him too. Before that.

A woman. She asked for Russian embroideries. And then she asked for Aunt Mary. Mind, Father, the toast is burning.

Dear me! said John Borlase. Your aunt had lived so long in Russia that she had no friends left in England. In all these years not a soul has enquired after her. I wish I had seen this lady. Was she Russian, do you think?

I don’t know. She kept asking questions, and then Mr. Belsize came in, and she left. I wasn’t sorry. There was something funny about her. Mr. Belsize has taken that copy of Eothen. Will you be wanting me to go to the library to change your novel?

No. I haven’t finished the last one yet. But you ought to go out and get a breath of fresh air, my dear. I don’t like you being shut up in this musty dark little shop day after day. It’s all very well for an old man like me, but not for a pretty young girl.

Anne laughed. Thanks for the bouquet, but I’m all right. I love my job. Don’t worry, darling.

Anne made the tea and they sat down to their evening meal. The living-room was dark for there was only one window facing the yard, and the yard was surrounded by the high walls of warehouses, and it was too full of furniture, but the fire burning in the old-fashioned grate made it seem cosy, and Anne had covered her father’s armchair with bright flowered chintz. John Borlase was small and frail and bent, with eyes brown as Anne’s, but tired and faded. His daughter looked at him with veiled anxiety as she passed him his cup.

How are you now, Father?

Better, my dear, much better. I shall be well enough to look after the shop tomorrow.

Then I can go to that sale at Horsham. We’ll see.

When they had finished their tea the old man turned to his chair by the fire and lit his pipe. About that woman, he said, Was she a foreigner?

I thought there was something foreign about her, said Anne. She added in her downright way—I didn’t take to her.

She went out to the scullery to wash the tea things. When she came back she noticed that her father, who usually was an inveterate reader, had laid aside his book and was gazing thoughtfully at the fire. He glanced up as she entered.

You haven’t forgotten your Aunt Mary?

I was only ten when she came back from Russia, Father, but I do remember it quite well. She arrived after dark one evening in the autumn of 1918. I can see her sitting where you are sitting now, shaking with cold and clutching a bundle. Her clothes were sticky with sea water. The charwoman had gone home and I had to get the spare room ready for her and heat some milk for her to drink. I remember feeling very excited and important. But it was the end of my holidays and I had to go back to school the next day. And ten days later you wrote to tell me she had died of pneumonia.

John Borlase drew at his pipe. Aye. The doctor called it that. Myself, I think she died of fright.

Anne’s eyes opened very wide. What was she frightened of?

That’s what I don’t know, he said. I fancied at the time that she was delirious. She was very ill, poor thing. She’d suffered great hardships. I never knew how she got out of Russia. She had been first nursery governess and then maid companion to a young Russian lady belonging to one of the great land-owning families, who was maid of honour to the Tsarina. Nadine her name was, and Mary said she was a lovely girl. Mary told me the revolutionaries broke into their house on the Nevski Prospect and lined the whole family up against the wall in the ball-room and shot them. Mary, poor soul, seemed to imagine she was in danger even here. She made me promise not to let anyone into the house. She didn’t want me to fetch the doctor. The second night she got out of bed and went down to the shop. I found her lying there in her nightgown when I went to look for her. She was unconscious, but when she came to she kept on about taking messages to somebody. It was terribly important, she said, but it was all muddled up and I couldn’t make head or tail of it.

And she died without explaining? said Anne, who was deeply interested.

Yes. She kept on trying to the very end, clinging to my hand with her weak fingers, and her lips moving, but she couldn’t make a sound. I expect it was just feverish fancies, Anne. Nothing in it. But this woman coming has brought it all back to my mind. A bit of a mystery, but it never will be solved now.

What had she got in that bundle? I remember she wouldn’t let you take it from her.

Nothing much, he said. Old clothes, a brush and comb, a pair of shoes. Everything she’d been able to bring away with her. I was so upset about it all that I shoved the things away in a drawer where they’ve been ever since.

Might I have a look at them, Father?

You can if you like, he said. The bottom drawer in the chest in the spare room. We don’t have visitors, Anne, and no one has slept there since. Bring the stuff down here.

Anne ran upstairs and came down again presently with an untidy bundle of clothing.

Moth has got into the woollen things, Father. They ought not to have been left there so long. If I had known—

The old man watched her sorting out ragged vests and black stockings green with age. A moth flew up and Anne caught it. There was an ivory-backed brush with the initials M.B. on it in tarnished silver.

Mary told me the little countess Nadine gave her that.

He leaned forward. What is it, Anne?

There was one dress in the bundle, an old-fashioned black cloth dress with a lined bodice. Anne held it up for him to see. The moths, eating into the material, had made a large hole under one arm.

Look, Father, there’s paper between the stuff and the lining! Wait a minute. She fetched her scissors from her work basket, enlarged the hole, and drew out an envelope. It’s addressed to Colonel Drury at the Dower House, Ladebrook, Sussex. She turned it over and looked at the seal of blue wax. An N with a little crown over it. Oh, I suppose it’s a coronet. Father, the girl’s voice shook with excitement, this must be the message Aunt Mary was so worried about, and it’s been lying in the spare room drawer, undelivered, for fourteen years. Oh, I’m not blaming you, darling, you couldn’t possibly know. I’ll just go thoroughly through everything now.

But there was only that one letter.

I should slit up every seam, advised Borlase.

All right, Father. She snipped away busily. But what else could there be?

Well—you never know. I wish now that I had listened more carefully to her wandering talk, but I had my hands full with the shop to mind and all. That was the dress she was wearing. I daresay she was searched more than once on frontiers on her way across Europe. To think they never found that letter.

Anne rolled up the heap of shredded clothing in a newspaper.

No use keeping this, she said. I’ll burn it in the copper next time it’s lit. The moth might get into something else. Father, do you know what I’ll do? I’m going into Sussex to that sale to-morrow. I’ll take this letter and deliver it myself on my way home.

Not a bad idea. Then you can explain the delay.

A letter from the dead, said Anne slowly. That N must stand for Nadine. I wonder who this Colonel Drury is.

You may not find him, said Borlase. Fourteen years is a long time. He may have left the neighbourhood. Whereabouts is Ladebrook? I never heard of it.

Anne got a map from the bookcase and pored over it.

Here it is, she said presently. If I take the Petworth road from Pulborough and branch off here I ought to get to it. I must allow plenty of time. Poor Aunt Mary! She said it was terribly important, didn’t she? I wonder if it is still. It’s funny how things happen. If that woman had not come into the shop this afternoon we might never have found this letter.

No, said her father. He was frowning a little. I rather wish we hadn’t. I don’t like mysteries.

Oh, Father! The girl’s face was flushed and eager. I think it’s awfully thrilling. It’s quite an adventure.

He smiled faintly at her enthusiasm. Yes. I suppose I’m old and unenterprising. But I can’t help remembering that Mary was afraid.

But, Father, Anne argued, that was the war and the revolution. I daresay she went through a lot, poor dear, but that’s all over long ago. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about now. Anyhow, we’re bound to deliver this letter if we can, aren’t we, and I don’t feel like posting it. We’re bound to explain how we came by it and that would mean writing pages. Besides, I’m curious. I want to see this Colonel Drury.

Very well, he said, but promise you’ll be careful.

She laughed. Of course. If I meet any dragons I’ll run away.

CHAPTER II

THE LETTER

Anne made an early start, reaching Horsham soon after eleven, and slipped into the marquee in which the sale was being held in time to bid for the three lots she had marked in her catalogue. Two were knocked down to her, but she lost the third which was put up just before the lunch interval. As she passed out with the crowd she found herself next to a famous art dealer whose name was almost as well known to connoisseurs all over the world as that of the Duveens.

Ah, my little chirping friend, his black eyes twinkled good-naturedly as he looked down at her, still hopping about our feet, eh? How is your good father?

Not too well, Mr. Kafka. And I’m not going to thank you for that inlaid tea caddy that was knocked down to me because I know you didn’t want it.

He chuckled. Impudence. But there is a firescreen. I know you like little things that you can carry away without any trouble. You shall have that too.

Thank you, Mr. Kafka, but I’m going now.

So early? That is foolish.

I can’t help it. I’m going somewhere else. We’re blocking the way.

Some men behind were laughing. Old Kafka talking to the little Borlase girl reminded them of a liner with a dinghy in tow. Kafka’s huge bulk was increased by his fur-lined coat. His size was portentous, but mind still ruled matter. Nothing escaped him.

They laughed; let them laugh, he said equably. Good-bye, little birdkin.

She slipped by him and went to find the auctioneer’s clerk and collect her stuff. Her shabby Ford was at the end of the row in which Mr. Kafka’s magnificent Rolls was the most conspicuous object. She ate her sandwiches and drank the coffee she had brought with her in a Thermos flask before she started. Once she had left the narrow winding streets of the old town behind her she began to enjoy herself. It was a fine day, with fleecy white clouds drifting slowly northward over the Downs, and the air was warm for October. Anne, who loved the country and was obliged to live in London, felt her spirits rising.

After she left the main road at Pulborough she met very little traffic. She became involved in a maze of lanes winding between high tree-crowned banks and crossed a heath and entered a densely wooded valley.

At last she saw a finger-post.

Ladebrook, three miles.

The woodlands evidently were private property for the road she followed now was bordered on one side by chestnut palings and on the other by a high stone wall. Presently the palings stopped and gave place to a privet hedge. She saw a row of hencoops on a patch of ground that had been cleared of trees and undergrowth, and a number of white fowls following a young man who was wheeling a barrow. She stopped her car and got out at the gate of the field. The young man left his barrow and came towards her. He was in his shirt sleeves and his sunburned throat and arms were bare. He had a pleasant freckled face with steady grey eyes. The fowls still followed him with excited cluckings.

What can I do for you?

Can you tell me the way to the Dower House, Ladebrook?

He pointed to a long roof of Horsham stone just visible over a bank of flowering shrubs and a high hedge of clipped yew adjoining the field. That’s the Dower House. I live there. He glanced towards her car. If you’re selling vacuum cleaners it’s no use. We’re very old-fashioned.

I’m not. Does Colonel Drury live here still?

My brother. Yes. What do you want with him?

Can I see him?

It depends. He’s an invalid. Perhaps you can tell me what it’s all about.

The young man was smiling. Anne amused him. She was so small and so determined. He still thought that she was probably trying to sell something. Perhaps, if she was not too persistent, she would be good for Stephen. The poor chap was apt to brood.

I’d like to see him, if possible, said Anne. I’ve got a letter for him and I want to explain why it wasn’t delivered years ago. She hesitated. Is his heart weak, or anything? It may be rather upsetting, she added.

Martin Drury’s smile had faded. His heart is all right, but his back was injured when the trench he was in was blown up. He can move from room to room on crutches but he spends most of his days on a spinal couch. I certainly don’t want him to be worried unnecessarily.

I’m sorry, said Anne gently. I’m so sorry if this is going to hurt him, but I think he ought to have the letter. It comes from Russia.

Russia? My brother was an attaché at the English Embassy until just before the War broke out. He had friends there, but they all belonged to the class that was wiped out during the revolution. Martin reflected a moment. All right, he said finally, I’ll take you in to him, but you must just wait while I feed the chickens.

Anne waited at the gate while he scattered the contents of a big bowl of meal in two netted enclosures. The birds, crowding after him, rushed for the food.

It’s like a bus stop at the rush hour, said the girl. Are they always as hungry as that?

Always. He came into the road, closing the gate after him.

Your car will be safe here if you like to leave it. We don’t get much traffic this way. I could have taken you in through the field, but it’s rather muddy. By the way, my name’s Martin Drury.

Mine is Anne Borlase.

The entrance gate to the Dower House was only thirty yards farther along the lane, a tall, wrought-iron gate hung between crumbling stone